Research Lab Combines Psychology with Technology

February 3, 2009

A unique laboratory has been established at The University of Alabama in Huntsville that combines psychology with technology to focus on the interaction between humans and complex systems.

Dr. Anthony Morris, a psychology professor in the College of Liberal Arts and a research scientist in the Center for Modeling, Simulation & Analysis (CMSA), has established the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory to investigate such issues.

This unique lab combines psychology and technology, and focuses its research on work performed by human factors engineers. Experimentation and research projects include human operator interaction with complex systems such as aircraft and designing work stations that are logical and user friendly, prevent injuries and trauma disorders; and creating manufacturing systems that maximize quality and productivity, while considering human limitations.

Morris and UAHuntsville graduate student Sage Jessee have been collaborating with Dr. Thomas Davis, chief of the Aviation and Missile Command Field Element of the Human Research and Engineering Directorate of the Army Research Lab at Redstone Arsenal, evaluating head and eye movement in the cockpit of Black Hawk helicopters.

The project “Building a Better Helicopter” recently aired on The Military Channel’s Science of War Videos.

Jessee worked as the eye-tracking specialist on a video game style simulator that monitored the pilot’s point of gaze and head position during flight scenarios.

“The purpose was two-fold: first, to build an ‘attentional landscape’ that characterized the general gaze of the pilot in terms of outside the window as opposed to inside the window viewing times; second, was to identify specific eye measures that correlate with mental workload,” Jessee said.

The new ergonomically designed cockpit used in the Black Hawk helicopter upgrade ensured researchers had good head and eye movement. More importantly, it enabled test pilots the ability to spend 90 percent of their time looking outside windows, rather than continuously staring at the instrument panel in the cockpit. This allowed test pilots more time to concentration on reconnaissance. The user-friendly cockpit also gives researchers more opportunity to learn more about pilot behavior, ultimately reducing pilot error and saving lives.

Jessee, a home-schooled student from North Alabama, decided to transfer to UAHuntsville because of its focus on student needs and top of the line research.

“Combining psychology and technology was a natural progression for me as a budding human factors psychologist,” he said. “All I had to do was marry my appreciation of people and individual differences to my enjoyment of technology. It turned out that Huntsville is an excellent place for career opportunities of someone with my interests.”

Jessee will graduate this spring and is preparing to move into a position with the Army Research Lab and continue his research. He is also a member of the Tennessee Valley Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, which has allowed students to gain experience in presenting. Last fall, Jessee presented an overview of Delmia’s digital human modeling system used during the product life cycle management process.

Delmia is software distributed by Dassault Systems. According to Morris, Delmia has the largest robotics simulation capacity of any product lifecycle management software on the market.

Morris is working on placing other UAHuntsville students enrolled in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory in prime research posts at manufacturing companies and virtual reality labs located at NASA (Marshall Space Flight Center), Army AMCOM, Boeing and Dassault Systems. Students are also encouraged to get involved in research at CMSA at UAHuntsville.

Morris said the SCEP contract, awarded to students through CMSA, provides valuable training and learning experience for students. “The SCEP contract is typically a 12-month program that allows students to enter into a government work environment with competitive wages while still focusing primarily on their academic curriculum,” he explained.

Morris likened human factors engineering as a bridge to student success in the workplace, as well as establishing an advantageous partnership between area businesses and UAHuntsville.

Related Stories

University of Washington researchers are part of a national team that will study the baby teeth of children who have siblings with autism to determine if prenatal exposure to chemicals increases their risk of developing the ...

Most people could benefit from a few extra hours of sleep every night. But some people habitually sleep much less than the recommended amount, yet report feeling no ill effects. A new University of Utah study, published Sept. ...

Many Londoners were appalled by adverts last year featuring a woman in a bikini asking others if they were "beach body ready". For many, these type of adverts are emblematic of the sexist cult of thinness that is so pervasive ...

Community characteristics play an important role in perpetuating teen suicide clusters and thwarting prevention efforts, according to a new study by sociologists at the University of Chicago and University of Memphis who ...

Ronald Schouten is the director of Massachusetts General Hospital's Law and Psychiatry Service and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has been studying the psychology of terrorism since the ...

Recommended for you

Short telomeres—the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes—have been previously linked to increased risk of death from heart disease. Now, research by scientists at UC San Francisco and the Veterans Affairs Medical ...

Researchers led by ETH Professor Martin Fussenegger at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel have produced artificial beta cells using a straightforward engineering approach.

Medical students are taught that once infected with Toxoplasma gondii—the "cat parasite"—then you're protected from reinfection for the rest of your life. This dogma should be questioned, argue researchers in an Opinion ...

A team of scientists has uncovered details of the cellular mechanisms that control the direct programming of stem cells into motor neurons. The scientists analyzed changes that occur in the cells over the course of the reprogramming ...

Loss of a key protein leads to defects in skeletal development including reduced bone density and a shortening of the fingers and toes—a condition known as brachydactyly. The discovery was made by researchers at Penn State ...

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC have engineered a protein that reverses carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in mice, a discovery that could potentially lead to the creation of the first ...

0 comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.